August 1, 2008
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Seventh-Grade Science Project

I ran in a field of wildflowers,
            waving a butterfly net, three
                         yards of gauzy fabric stitched

                         to the looped rim of a hanger
            stapled to a broom handle.
By summertime my father

had already left with his
            beautiful mistress. Mother
                         stayed inside and loafed, said

                         she could not watch my tiny
            murders. The field held lemon
lilies, day lilies aflame in orange

and red, buttercups, purple
            clover, and wild roses with
                         thorns that cut my arms.

                         I caught a black swallowtail,
            monarch, fritillary and mourning
cloak, a painted lady. I learned

how to sneak up on a butterfly,
            its long tubular tongue uncoiled
                         inside a flower, and pinch the

                         folded wings between my thumb
            and index finger. I dropped each
hostage onto a wad of Clorox-

soaked cotton inside the kill jar.
            I observed the flutter of wings,
                         the wiggling thorax, and when

                         the wiggling stopped, I placed
            the butterfly on a felt mounting
board. I stuck a straight pin

precisely into the center
            of the thorax and eased
                         the wings apart. Broken

                         wings or missing antennae
            would lose points. I prepared a
data label for each butterfly—name,

date of capture, location—then slid
            the bodies inside a shadow box.
                         The pin-pricked fingers, wasp

                         stings, and blood on my arms
            were what I paid for my first
A in science. All that summer

I ran like something wild and left
            my multi-colored fingerprints
                         on everything I touched.


(first published in Harvard Review, number 34, 2008)

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